re: 5 year plan to abolish police in Philly....

I couldnt watch the video, but I did read the whole article. I'll attempt to go through and see if I have common ground anywhere. Here goes nothing..

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"One of the things that we are demanding over five years is the complete abolition. We don't want to see any police in our community," Ndgo told Fox News in an interview Tuesday. "Over the course of those five years, it gives time for the community to begin to build what is needed. We aren't looking to leave any kind of vacancy around the issue of safety."

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Sounds like a hoop dream to me. I'd love it if we lived in a society where there truly was no need for the police, and we were able to lay off officers every simply because there were no work for them to do. But what makes us believe that is even plausible or possible. What society are we basing this ideal off of to make that a realistic goal?

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"As we address these particular concerns, and at the same time build restorative justice practices, and build out our mental health response teams, and build medic responses," she said, "[These are] responses that really actually deal with the issues that are in place. Then we will have less crime anyway."

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I'm not necessarily against any of this, I just fail to see how these actions will lead to crime decreasing drastically as she is assuming it will.

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"There are plenty of people who have been murdered as a result of mental health checks. The police came, and then they murdered the person, even though the person was acting erratically, which is what you would expect of a person who's having a mental health crisis," Ndgo said. "Domestic confrontations are also things that police are often called for. And these are kinds of situations that can be handled by different kinds of professionals. As it relates to more violent crime, there would still be trained individuals who are prepared to handle those kinds of situations."

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Does she have numbers for this. Who are all of the people who have been killed as a result of a mental health check. I would like to see better training for officers when dealing with individuals having a mental health crisis, etc. But what are the numbers of police killings with this. Because any of the popularized BLM cases, none of those fits this scenario she is bringing up.

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"Quite often, if there is violence happening, by the time the police arrive, that has already occurred and particularly in poor neighborhoods and in black and brown communities. So the police are not really a resource for preventing that kind of crime from happening. Just a response,"

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Partially true. Police for the most part, are reactive, and not proactive. I would love for cities(not necessarily police departments) to do more proactive measures in order to address crime. But I would also argue that by an officer arresting someone who committed a crime, he therefore prevented that person from committing further crimes. Now if the court system lets that individual go, and he inevitably commits more crimes, then that is something that the police really dont have much control over, and thus is not their fault.

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"We also recognize that hunger, unnecessary hunger, is a form of unnecessary homelessness (especially) when you have massive numbers of properties that are empty, and then we have people who are all over the city. We see that also as violence," Ndgo said. "Another example is the fact that a lot of our schools are not safe for our children. There is lead pipes in a lot of the schools. So students are being expected to learn in environmentally hazardous places, those are things that we see as violence."

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I am 100% against world hunger, and would love to see it end. I also want schools to be safer for children. The lead poisoning part, that is something I have not heard before. Does she have some data to back this problem up, exactly? If data backs up the claim for lead poisoning being a real problem, then I dont mind supporting that statement.

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BLM Philadelphia also wants to see changes on a federal level. Ngdo said that the president has the authority to call in the National Guard irrespective of whether the governors or mayors approve it, a power they view as perpetrating "danger and harm."

"You see now, the president can have any kind of mindset. And then (they) have a local military force at his or her disposal in order to push that mindset onto communities," Ngdo cautioned. "That would be one thing really important, to transform that policy."

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Hell I actually agree with that. That should be something that the governor has more power over, not necessarily the president. Does she realize she is advocating for small government?

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The chapter envisions programs led by the Department of Defense – including programs that "takes military-grade equipment and transfers it into local police departments," as well as the Trump administration's 2019 Relentless Pursuit program that gives funding to local police departments – coming to an end.

"It just increases the resources to these police terror groups. And so shifting those resources from that, you have these federal resources that are being used in these ways that could easily be shifted into the communities to address these issues around poverty," Ngdo said.

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I am all for trying to address poverty. And I know that higher poverty rates leads to higher crime. But you cant just take money from the police and give that money to poor people thinking that will solve all your problems. The world doesnt work that way. Gotta be smarter than that.

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She pointed out that "there are over 800 U.S. military bases around the world," in addition to the Pentagon's AFRICOM program, "which puts military bases in almost every country on the African continent."

According to Pentagon maps published by The Intercept in February, there appear to be U.S. bases on 29 of the 54 countries that make up Africa. Those bases, she said, should be defunded.

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I was not aware of this program. In any case, I am completely for pulling troops out of all these other countries. I prefer we mind our own business, and let other countries deal with their own affairs on their own. We are not the world's superhero.


All in all, she is not the worst person to speak on behalf of BLM. She's atleast put serious thought into what she is saying. I just think she is naive and not thinking realistically on a lot of things.

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Philadelphia turn to shite

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Philadelphia has long been there.

I'm all for these cities trying it. We can all sit back and enjoy watching this trainwreck

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"Quite often, if there is violence happening, by the time the police arrive, that has already occurred and particularly in poor neighborhoods and in black and brown communities. So the police are not really a resource for preventing that kind of crime from happening. Just a response,"

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Partially true. Police for the most part, are reactive, and not proactive. I would love for cities(not necessarily police departments) to do more proactive measures in order to address crime. But I would also argue that by an officer arresting someone who committed a crime, he therefore prevented that person from committing further crimes. Now if the court system lets that individual go, and he inevitably commits more crimes, then that is something that the police really dont have much control over, and thus is not their fault.

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Not to mention the deterrent it creates just knowing you will be arrested (the response) if you do something wrong. I don't even think it's possible to quantify how many crimes are NOT committed per day because of this. Take that deterrent away and things will get real ugly. I think her logic on this really shows her naivety.

Plus I believe police patrolling areas is actually considered proactive. You see a police car in your neighborhood everyday, randomly, you think twice before stealing that neighbors "whatever".

Someone go break into her house and take everything
Then recheck her opinion of police

Kurt Russell in 'Escape from Philadelphia'